Good evening,

I spoke too soon a few weeks ago when I said that the girls were finally healthy.  They were only healthy for about a week.  Since then they have had a cold for the last two weeks.  Poor Chantel is having the hardest time.  Monday and Tuesday she was hardly eating and what she did eat came back up.  Today she had a really bad cough.  However, I am hopeful that she is on the mend.  She ate a little at dinner tonight and she was actually smiling again.  I think that all of the antibiotics she took for her staff infection has really weakend her.  Sometimes I wonder what it would be like to be a mother of healthy children.

Sharmi is doing pretty good except for her cold.  MONDAY WILL BE HER LAST SPINAL CHEMO IN HER BACK!!!!!   I pray that it will be the last time ever that I hold her in my arms and watch her colapse knowing that her back will hurt and she will wake up sick and weak.  I know she will take it like a champ.  I can’t help but think back to when this all began and how scary it was for her and us.  Now it is just another day.  She is my hero!

Sharmi has become such a big girl.  She loves to “mommy” Chantel.  This afternoon she was taking care of me.  I have had several rough nights of sleep so I laid down this afternoon to take a nap.  She had taken a short nap earlier so I asked her if she wanted to take a nap with me.  I was surprised when she said yes.  However, I quickly realized that she was ”putting me down for a nap.”  She crawled up into my bed and she read me two bible stories.  The first one was about baby Moses, with a little bit of baby Jesus slipped in and the second story was about Captian Naaman’s leprosy.  She did a great job.  When she was done reading she gave me cuddles for a while and then a hug and a kiss.  Then off she went.  She assured me that she would come back and check on me in ten minutes.  This would have been great, but she kept coming in to close the binds, tell me to hold still and go to sleep    (which I was desperatly trying to do)  and she even brought me my goblet of water and told me that she would get me more if I drank it all.  It was priceless!

Chantel’s newest thing is her infatuation with taking baths.  Every-time I turn around she is in the bath.  She can climb in now, but she can’t quite get out.  Her favorite bath is mine because she likes to stand under the facet and fill containers with water.  Yesterday, however, she climbed in her bath tub and she wanted me to turn the water on.  I turned it on until there was just a trickle and she drank it like our cat Bali.  It was really funny.  I caught it on video so she can laugh some day as well.

Good Bless you and your families.  Goodnight,

Cheris